


Looking for a Breath of Life

by samyazaz



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1196673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samyazaz/pseuds/samyazaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best time to go to the surface is when there's a storm rolling in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking for a Breath of Life

The best time to go to the surface is when there's a storm rolling in. All the others will be fathoms below, where the water stays calm, too busy avoiding the violent waves to keep as close an eye on Enjolras. They avoid the violence, they like it down where everything is calm and static and always the same. 

Enjolras likes the change. Likes to push his head above the water and feel the air above turn cold and cruel, likes the sting of the spray against his cheeks and the way clouds roll in overhead, so thick and low it seems if only he jumped high enough, he could grab a handful. 

Today, there's a shadow on the surface that's too dense to be the storm. A ship. 

_People._

Enjolras swims up, careful to keep in its wake as he keeps pace alongside. People never look behind, always with their eyes ahead, gazes focused on the horizon. He admires that about them. 

There's no horizon under the waves, just a slow fade into the endless black. Enjolras yearns for the bright burn of the sun and the glow of the moon and the touch of the wind. 

But today, there _is_ someone looking behind, a man leaning against the back rail and staring down at the waves, a bottle dangling from his fingers. Enjolras would be thrilled to be up there, so high above the waves, nothing but air thin and thrilling around him, but this person looks as bored as Enjolras feels with life beneath the waves. 

The storm grows and the people on the ship stir into a buzz of activity. The man at the rail looks up at the roiling clouds and tips his bottle against his mouth again. 

The clouds open and rain pours down in sheets. Enjolras turns his face up to the rarity and the novelty of it, even when though stings, particularly _because_ it stings. 

And because he's there, because he's looking up, he sees when the ship tilts on the waves, when the man at the rail gets thrown over it and drops down, his cry lost beneath the howl of the wind, his disappearance unnoticed by the others on his ship, too busy and too blinded to have their eye on him. 

The man drops, down through the air and into the waves, and then down through those as well. 

It is forbidden for merfolk to interact with the people who live above the waves. 

Enjolras doesn't even hesitate. 

He dives, swimming down hard to catch up to the man so he can catch him, so he can wrap his arms around the man's chest and pull him up again, up, up to the air that gives people life as the sea gives it to merfolk. 

But the clouds are pelting down rain still and the air above is almost as wet as the waves below, and the man doesn't wake. So Enjolras holds on to him, his arms aching at the man's weight, and swims to the distant shore, to a slope of sand shallow enough that he can swim hard and beach himself upon it and drag the man up with him. 

People need air as merfolk need the sea, but the man is still, is unmoving. There are whispers amongst children, those who aren't too frightened of the laws to dare, rumors about the people above the waves. Enjolras has heard them, has sought them out. He's not sure he believes them, but the man needs air and Enjolras doesn't know how else to help him, so he fills his lungs with it, sharp and stinging, and presses his mouth to the man's as merchildren have whispered they do, to share air between each other. 

The man coughs, and sputters, and rouses. He rises off the sand like a wave, and Enjolras scrambles back. The man stops him with a hand in his hair, strands twisted around his fingers like seaweed. His eyes are distant, dazed. When he pulls Enjolras in, he allows it. 

The man presses his mouth to Enjolras's again. His lips part, and he lets out a burst of air. _Breath_. Enjolras knows what that is. 

In the sea, amongst the merfolk, it's a terrible insult to refuse a gift. Enjolras gave the man breath; now he gives Enjolras the same in return. Breath is life for the people above the waves, the most precious of gifts. Enjolras won't insult him by refusing it. 

He parts his lips and accepts the gift, feels the warmth of it fill his mouth, fill his chest. And he understands a little bit why it can bestow life on those who live above the waves. He wonders if this man, with his wet curls and his blue eyes and the hand that grips Enjolras's arm a bit too tight, if he will teach Enjolras how to do it himself.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Fairy Tale and Mythology Based Drabbles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1735211) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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